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How much water loss is normal?

I'm a new pool owner quickly learning about my pool and this forum has been invaluable so thanks to everyone who participates and shares their time and knowledge.

So my question is this, how much water loss is normal for a pool due to evaporation and "splash out"? I realize that a lot of factors play into this such as how much is the pool used and how much sun the pool receives, temperature, etc. But this past week we've started to use our pool and yesterday I realized that the water level had dropped enough to cause the pump to "stutter" because the skimmer wasn't getting enough water (I quckly shut off the pump and started to fill the pool). This means that the water dropped about 1.5 inches. Is this normal? Should I expect to "top off" the pool once a week?

I just did a "bucket test" and found that my pool isn't leaking, and loses over 2" a week from evaporation and/or splash out. I'm in a part of AZ where the daytime temps are above 100F and the nighttime temps are below 60F, and that combination leads to a lot of evaporation.

There's another recent thread that covers how to do the bucket test for leaks, but it sounds like your amount of loss is normal under some conditions.

Queequeg, thanks for the reply. I'm pretty sure I don't have a leak as the water level went down in one night (after swimming) and last night after I filled it back up, this morning the water level was exactly the same. Of course, I'll keep an eye on the level and do the bucket leak test if needed. I just wasn't sure if it was common to lose that much water due to normal use and temperature/sun exposure. It does sound like people do have to top off their pools once a week or two, so I feel a little more comfortable that what I experienced is normal.

This figuring out what's normal is causing me a bit of concern too. I'm in central AL and we've had temps above 90 for a week or so straight with no rain. I came home for lunch Friday to find my water low enough to barely get in the skimmer. I went through all of the anxiety you just went through. This was on the heels of adding muriatic acid for the first time, so I was already a bit paranoid. I'm looking forward to the arrival of my test kit and learning what's normal.

Pool owners that don't use a solar cover will lose water more rapidly from evaporation, then pool owners who use a solar cover. Also pools in more arid areas like AZ would lose more rapidly, I would think.

I rarely have to add water weekly. Usually if I do lose water we get enough rain to make up for it.